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40% of foreign students in the US have no close American friends on campus

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Re: 40% of foreign students in the US have no close American friends on campus

#181

Post by jimmies »

arambhashura wrote: post #125
hkmurakami wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sort of okay with the cheating on English proficiency exams. They're pretty contrived anyways. But these groups also tend to help each other out in cheating on actual assignments and tests, which doesn't sit well with the me.

Going off-topic from the OP: Not only that, but when I was a foreign student, the Indian and Chinese students had networks of past-year students, who'd built up databases of exam questions. While perhaps strictly not cheating, this gave them an advantage, because some professors repeated questions from previous quarters/years. Some of us thought that was unfair, and talked with the professors and they were unwilling…

I am international myself and have seen international students cheating before. In one (really bad, no one cares) course that I took as an undergrad, everyone cheated. I was the only one who came to class and didn't cheat (or didn't know that you could cheat in that course). It was, perhaps not noble, but not rare for students (American + non-American) to pass on their exams to the next class and professors discuss how to deter that too.

Re: 40% of foreign students in the US have no close American friends on campus

#182

Post by rpearl »

nostrebored wrote: post #88
rpearl wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Give an example.

Questioning liberal ideas in a liberal place; try asking a question about anything related to gender, "born this way" narratives, third wave feminism, and you will be called a bigot. I'm not even talking about making an assertion here; asking a question about these politics sparks huge responses in people.

You're being super vague so I cannot give a good response. If you treat people as people, assume good faith, and ask genuine questions you'll be treated just fine.

I rarely find people on the conservative side of the political spectrum are actually interested in doing that, because they don't act like they think of gender non-conforming people as people. They might, but they certainly don't act that way. I'm gratified where I'm proven wrong, but such people are few and far between.

Re: 40% of foreign students in the US have no close American friends on campus

#183

Post by legostormtroopr »

TheOneTrueKyle wrote: post #153
hubert123 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Language is not the reason however why these foreign students wouldnt spend energy to learn the language better before studying abroad.

Yeah you can learn English all you want, but that isn't going to help you understand Snoop Dogg lyrics.

Fo shizzle my nizzle. Snoop wrizzles dope lyrizzles, but his rich vocizzle is confizzling.

Re: 40% of foreign students in the US have no close American friends on campus

#184

Post by rpearl »

watwut wrote: post #148
rpearl wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Give an example.

Not exactly political correctness in left vs right meaning but, where I am from, you would say something like "I would kill him/you" causally and no one will think twice. That sort of thing tends to freak out Americans (I know cause I said it) who tend to take it much more seriously. For me, it was just causal expression. Americans expect you to show a lot more enthusiasm then Europeans and if you don't show it, they…

> people from here might consider it perfectly normal to blame feminity when woman does something stupid or just makes them angry [...] That does not necessary means the person who said it is sexist

I am going to be descriptive here. Non-judgemental. But: that... is sexist. By definition. It perpetuates the idea that "being a woman" is a thing that can be blamed for an action. Continuing to talk in that way perpetuates sexism.

> You are expected to dislike feminism even when you are pro-equality.

Again, this is structural/cultural sexism. You might not want to hear that, and you might not think it's a problem, but that's what it is. So when you enter a place where the culture is not accepting of that sexism, I don't know why you should expect not to have backlash if you continue to act like that.

Re: 40% of foreign students in the US have no close American friends on campus

#185

Post by gukov »

anigbrowl wrote: post #150
habosa wrote: post #74

It seems obvious that a huge (and hard to solve) reason for this is simply language! There are many levels of language proficiency: Level 1: Can read and write it at your own pace Level 2: Can comfortably converse in a professional setting (little slang or cultural knowledge needed) Level 3: Can comfortably converse in a social setting (slang, faster speech, less clarification) Level 4: Can do all of the above passiv…

'For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.' - H. L. Mencken American society is massively socially segregated by race and class, more so than in many other countries. I can form friendships with people with zero language in common, but it took me several years in the US to build a community of American friends despite being a native English speaker and a highly literate one at tha…

American society is as good as it gets when it comes to inclusion. No other country, except maybe for Canada, had to deal with multiculturalism as much.

Humans are complicated social creatures by nature. There will always be cliques, competitiveness, the us against them mentality, etc. It's who we are. It's what got us here.

Re: 40% of foreign students in the US have no close American friends on campus

#186

Post by girvo »

morgante wrote: post #157
vacri wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> US/UK and Australia are all basically the 'same culture' While indeed similar, a story on that: a friend at a high-end consulting firm here in Australia told of a US colleague who was over for a 6-month secondment. At the end of the visit, he apparently said "I wish I had known at the start that the people making fun of me probably liked me, and the people being perfectly polite probably didn't..."

> At the end of the visit, he apparently said "I wish I had known at the start that the people making fun of me probably liked me, and the people being perfectly polite probably didn't..." That's not really a cultural difference. It's just basic social skills in America too.

Excuse the language, but Australia (Aussie/Kiwi here!) is where you call you friends "cunts" and your enemies "mate". So I can understand someone's confusion!

Re: 40% of foreign students in the US have no close American friends on campus

#187

Post by retroencabulato »

gukov wrote: post #185
anigbrowl wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

'For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.' - H. L. Mencken American society is massively socially segregated by race and class, more so than in many other countries. I can form friendships with people with zero language in common, but it took me several years in the US to build a community of American friends despite being a native English speaker and a highly literate one at tha…

American society is as good as it gets when it comes to inclusion. No other country, except maybe for Canada, had to deal with multiculturalism as much. Humans are complicated social creatures by nature. There will always be cliques, competitiveness, the us against them mentality, etc. It's who we are. It's what got us here.

Canada is certainly a major instigator, but expand your thinking outside North America and you may be surprised.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_ranked_by_et...

Re: 40% of foreign students in the US have no close American friends on campus

#188

Post by redditmigrant »

For me personally as a foreign student from India the biggest hurdle was cultural. I didnt know much about Star Wars, or American TV of the 1980s-90s which meant I couldnt just jump in to most conversations. The second biggest hurdle was that I just didnt enjoy drinking and drinking games to the extent that is a part of contemporary American college setup. Thus I didnt have stories of things I did while drunk. All this combined meant it became hard to enjoy settings with predominantly American/Western groups.

At some point sub-consciously I stopped trying and went into my comfort zone i.e. other Indian people who got my jokes, and where I didnt have to give cultural context before every life story I was telling. I do regret not having made friends from alternate cultures while I had the best opportunity i.e. in college.

Re: 40% of foreign students in the US have no close American friends on campus

#189

Post by hkmurakami »

jimmies wrote: post #181
arambhashura wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Going off-topic from the OP: Not only that, but when I was a foreign student, the Indian and Chinese students had networks of past-year students, who'd built up databases of exam questions. While perhaps strictly not cheating, this gave them an advantage, because some professors repeated questions from previous quarters/years. Some of us thought that was unfair, and talked with the professors and they were unwilling…

I am international myself and have seen international students cheating before. In one (really bad, no one cares) course that I took as an undergrad, everyone cheated. I was the only one who came to class and didn't cheat (or didn't know that you could cheat in that course). It was, perhaps not noble, but not rare for students (American + non-American) to pass on their exams to the next class and professors discuss h…

This is exactly why I'm against this behavior -- the only one that are punished are the ethical ones [1]. Kept unchecked, soon you will have pressured all the ethical people into giving into cheating as well!

[1] It's like doping in sports.

Re: 40% of foreign students in the US have no close American friends on campus

#190

Post by int_19h »

morgante wrote: post #156
habosa wrote: post #74

It seems obvious that a huge (and hard to solve) reason for this is simply language! There are many levels of language proficiency: Level 1: Can read and write it at your own pace Level 2: Can comfortably converse in a professional setting (little slang or cultural knowledge needed) Level 3: Can comfortably converse in a social setting (slang, faster speech, less clarification) Level 4: Can do all of the above passiv…

I'm not convinced that language is actually such an essential aspect. Cultural similarity seems like a much bigger one. For example, I've seen Indians with great English struggle a lot more to fit in and acclimate than French students with poor English but more shared cultural touchstones. As an American, I've found it to be much easier to make friends with Europeans than with students from non-Western cultures—even…

Both are essential aspects. I certainly struggled a lot with the language back in my day, as a Russian studying in New Zealand.
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